Purpose Isn't Something You Find. It's Something You Notice.
The Search That Keeps Coming Up Empty
I've been thinking about purpose a lot lately — maybe too much, if I'm being honest. I went through a stretch a few years back where I was genuinely convinced I was missing something. Like everyone else had received some memo that I hadn't, and if I just read the right book or asked the right question, it would finally click. I read the books. I asked the questions. And for a long time, nothing clicked.
What I've come to think now is that we've made purpose into this enormous, intimidating thing. A calling. A north star. Something cinematic. And because we've built it up that way, most of us walk right past it — because what we're actually living doesn't look like that. It looks ordinary. It looks like Tuesday.
What Purpose Actually Looks Like in Real Life
Here's what I mean. I have a friend who has probably talked a dozen people through job losses, breakups, and moments where they didn't know what to do next. She doesn't have a therapy practice. She doesn't have a podcast. She just has this quality — this ability to sit with someone in a hard moment without rushing them toward the exit. People call her. They always have. She's never once described that as her purpose, but I'd argue it's exactly that. She just hasn't named it yet.
That's the thing about purpose — it tends to be quieter and more consistent than we expect. It shows up in the roles you fall into without auditioning for them. The stuff people ask you for without thinking about whether it's a reasonable ask. I used to volunteer to write things for every group I was part of — the email, the recap, the thing that needed to be said but nobody knew how to say it. I didn't think of that as meaningful. I thought of it as just helping out. But when I look back, there's a pretty clear thread running through my life, and writing is most of it.
The Different Ways Purpose Shows Up
When I started paying attention to this, I noticed it shows up in pretty distinct ways depending on the person. Some people are natural community builders — they walk into a room and somehow, within a few months, there's a group chat and a recurring dinner and people who didn't know each other before now consider each other friends. Others are empathetic leaders, the kind of managers people remember for decades because they actually saw them as humans. Some are teachers in the truest sense — not necessarily in a classroom, but wherever they are, things click for people around them. There are builders who need to be making something or they get restless, and protectors who can't look the other way when something isn't right. Connectors who see the relationship between two people before either of them does. Mentors who keep investing in others long after there's any formal reason to. Truth tellers who say the uncomfortable thing, not to be difficult, but because they genuinely can't pretend not to see it. Stewards who quietly hold something together over years. Storytellers who help the rest of us understand what we just went through.
And then there are the people you see in volunteer spaces — showing up consistently, often without recognition, because something in them just can't not. Whatever their role, whatever their title, that's where you see who they actually are.
None of those require a title. None of them show up on a resume in a way that captures what they actually are. But you can feel them in how someone moves through the world, the same way, over and over again.
Why We Keep Missing It
I think what gets in the way is that we're waiting for something that feels significant enough to count. A role with a title. A moment of clarity. Something you could put on a slide and point to. And while we're waiting for that, the actual evidence of what matters to us keeps accumulating — quietly, unremarkably — in how we spend our time and who comes to us and what we can't seem to stop doing even when nobody's asking us to.
A Better Question to Ask Yourself
I'm not saying the search is pointless. It's not. Asking the question matters. But maybe instead of asking what am I supposed to do with my life, it's worth asking something smaller: what do people actually come to me for? Where do I keep showing up, even when it's inconvenient? What have I been doing for so long that I stopped noticing it?
And if you're still not sure , volunteer somewhere. Seriously. Put yourself in a room where nothing is required of you professionally and see what you naturally do. See who you gravitate toward. See what problems you can't walk past without trying to help. Purpose has a funny way of showing its hand when there's nothing else to perform for.
There's probably something in those answers. Not a revelation, just a direction. And sometimes that's enough to start with.
If this resonated, I think you'll love my conversation with Sam Bush, host of Ambush on Air. She sat down with me on Coffey Talk and openly shared her own journey to recognizing her purpose and what it looked like to finally live in it. It's a good one. You can listen on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and if you prefer to watch, we're on YouTube too.
